What We Do In Perth

A friend emailed me the other day and said she noticed that I hadn't written anything about Perth and wasn't there anything to say about it? John grew up in the "sunniest city in Australia" and we've lived there together from time to time since the beginning of 2005. So when we visit we tend to see family and friends, relax and take it easy rather than go sightseeing. Aside from our day trip to Mandurah, we haven't done anything even remotely touristy. After all, there isn't too much to do in Perth aside from hanging out at the beach, eating seafood and perhaps a bit of sport or shopping. Not that it would be considered a destination for either of the latter.

The sun sets over the city of Perth along the Swan River. Photo by berendsrob from Flickr.

But Perth is a beautiful city and it's enough to just spend time here and have the chance to go to the beaches whenever we want and take in spectacular sunsets. The beaches and the sunsets are the most beautiful in the world (spoken like a true sandgroper, I know). But instead of talking about Rottnest Island, Kings Park, Northbridge or Fremantle, I thought I'd share with you the things that we do when we're in Perth. These mainly consist of eating fresh food, checking out nature, walking at the beach and, as I mentioned already, plenty of R&R.

We love taking walks along the beach when we're in Perth. Photo by Katatoniq from Flickr.

John's family background is Macedonian, which means he has a huge extended family and everyone has a garden. The Maco thing to do is to share around their homegrown vegetables, go for dinner at each other's houses and enjoy really fresh meats and produce. I always look forward to our Perth visits because it means I actually know where most of my food is coming from. John's parents visit local farms to buy things like fruit, meat, eggs and vegetables or, even better, get the produce right out of their own garden. Then we relax over a nice meal at lunchtime (the European way) and some tasty Australian beer or wine to wash it all down. Barbecues are held at least once a week. That's the very Aussie part of it all.

Tomatoes growing in John's parents' garden.

Deliciously sweet Western Australian cherries from down south.

John's father makes a mean roasted lamb on the spit - our mouths water for weeks in anticipation of this.

As I mentioned in my last post, we gained some weight travelling around the world last year so we made an effort to walk at the beach a lot. Perth has some excellent walking and bicycle tracks that run right up the coast so if the weather isn't too hot (as it has been), it's wonderful to just go walking right along the beach in the mornings or evenings and watch the sun rise or set with the famous Fremantle doctor (the strongest and most consistent sea breeze in the world) cooling you off as you walk.

Peppers (or peperki) are to Macedonians what tomatoes are to Italians.

There's a little genetic selection going on at the moment in preparation for this year's planting.

Only the seeds from the strongest will survive.

Perth is also great for sitting in a park and birdwatching, with so many interesting native birds and parrots around. Or in our case we can birdwatch in John's parents' backyard: they have several families of canaries and babies are born all the time.

A good mother canary sitting on her eggs. We noticed she takes turns with the dad.

Meanwhile in another cage this pair have barely been born.

By the time you read this we'll be off on our road trip down south, another must-do activity on a visit to Perth. So stay tuned for more photographs and information from beautiful Western Australia.

As much as I love travelling and experiencing other cultures, and even though I’m a local Perthie, i can say with my hand on my heart that we have some of the best produce and no place beats our beaches, no place. BBq on a sunday with beer in hand … peace.